The office of Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor won't say why it has taken more than a year to respond to a complaint by local media about the city's policy to withhold open records in suicide cases.

The complaint (left) submitted to D.A. Chad Taylor has been yet to be responded to after a year. The KORA request (right) was filed last year to obtain information about the city's policy to withhold records about suicide cases.

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The Shawnee County District Attorney’s office won’t say why it has taken more than a year to respond to a complaint by local media about the city’s policy to withhold open records in suicide cases.

Meanwhile, city and police officials can’t answer questions about their unwritten policy because the district attorney’s investigation is ongoing, said city attorney Chad Sublet.

The Topeka Capital-Journal, Kansas Press Association, WIBW-TV, WIBW-AM and Kansas First News contend the identities of suicide victims who die in public should be made available for consideration in news-gathering purposes. The organizations submitted a complaint to District Attorney Chad Taylor on Aug. 8, 2013.

The Kansas Open Records Act makes the information public, and the D.A.’s delay “is kind of preposterous,” said KPA director Doug Anstaett.

The Capital-Journal asked the D.A.’s office for an update in June. Another request for an update was made the day after a man ran in front of a semitrailer Aug. 21 on Interstate 70 in west Topeka.

Lee McGowan, a spokesman for the D.A.’s office, said last week the office was awaiting a Topeka Police Department response. Sublet said the D.A.’s office first asked for a response Aug. 25 and that he followed up to confirm it was the first time the city had been asked.

Sublet said Tuesday night the city has sent its reply.

Earlier Tuesday, McGowan said he hoped the issue would be resolved soon and declined to explain why it had taken more than a year to reach an opinion.

“At this point,” McGowan said, “I’m not going to talk about the timing.”

Anstaett called the delay “a travesty” and said the Kansas Attorney General’s office notes in training that complaints should be given a high priority.

“You know, whether we like their decision or not,” Anstaett said, “the fact that they haven’t made one, it’s taken this long, is kind of preposterous.”

It isn’t clear when or why the police department began withholding the names of suicide victims, or why the policy doesn’t extend to victims of violent crime. Capital-Journal archives indicate the policy may have been in place as early as 2009.

Police officials and attorneys have refused to respond to questions about the policy before and after the complaint was submitted last year. TPD legal adviser JaLynn Copp’s most recent response to a KORA request on the issue again fails to meet the statute’s requirement to explain why it is necessary to withhold the victim’s identity.

The city of Topeka and TPD “have no legal basis for doing this,” said Capital-Journal attorney Michael Merriam.

Sublet said he would “be happy to sit down and talk” after the D.A.’s office gives its opinion.

“In all cases, pertinent facts have been released that would impact the public interest,” Sublet said. “The only fact that has not been released is the private and personal nature of the identity of the individual who may have committed suicide.”

In the most recent case, interstate traffic was restricted for hours while the man’s body remained in sight.

“It’s one thing if it’s done in the privacy of the home, or something like that,” said Jon Janes, WIBW-TV news director. “It’s quite another if it’s done in a manner such as the I-70 event, where traffic was backed up for miles, people had to route around the area, and hundreds of people wanted to know what caused that incident.

“Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to use the name of that person, but I think it’s up to us to decide whether we use that name. I don’t think your law enforcement agencies can be the moral, ethical guide of what news organizations publish or decide to publish.”

Anstaett also said reporters and editors should decide what is relevant to a story.

“We need to be able to give the family the opportunity to tell the story of their loved one, and not have that be the final bit of information about them,” Anstaett said.

“This is not a comfortable situation for anybody,” he added. “And sometimes the public doesn’t understand that we sweat blood over some of these things as well when we are trying to determine how to cover them.”

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If the media gave a damn about the family, it would allow them to decide whether or not to comment on the death of a relative.
Contrary to what the CJ and others believe is appropriate, some things are better left alone.
The traffic delay rationale is absurd.
Have some respect for the folks you hope will purchase your publication.

I knew a family whose son took his life after he was an adult. Siblings and parents still worked in public. To have had his suicide in the news would have added great pain to his parents and siblings... having to go to work every day with people who might ask nosy questions about it.

Frankly, I'd rather not know than to think of it being in the news.

No, I think there should be a law that says the names of suicide victims CAN'T be in the news.

Certain situations have to be reported though. A prisoner takes his life. I think that has to be made public, but not their names.

If the family happens to want the name in the paper and suicide indicated they can put that in the obituary.

However, I don't think the police should be the decision-makers on it, nor the paper. There should be a law.

We have been over this ground before. When a person dies in public, suicide or not, it is by definition a matter of public interest. It is not the perogative of the police to make editorial decisions about that person's identity. Once the media has the information, they may decide not to publish the identity - it depends on the facts and circumstances. Most media do not publish identities of suicides that do not occur in public, such as at home. But when a person kills himself in a public place, he has no privacy interest; indeed he chose the place becasue it was public. We do not allow the police to make judgment calls about such facts.

It may not have been suicide - who says it was? Perhaps it was an accident; perhaps there were witnesses; perhaps it was a criminal act; perhaps the person was confused or in need of care; perhaps the setting was inherently unsafe; perhaps safety precautions were not followed; perhaps the person was wanted by police for some reason; perhaps there have been many suicides at that location; etc., etc. The media ask many questions before making the decision to publish or not. But when you accept the judgment of the police, you do so without facts, often based on reports of unqualified officers.

When you say let him rest in peace, or leave the grieving family alone, you touch upon a sensitive issue for editors, who keenly feel a responsibility. It is a responsibility that turns both to the victim and also to the public interest. None of my clients automatically publish these identities. They make careful judgment decisions in each case. Consider this: if a prominent person such as an elected official or politician stepped in front of a train, what would be your policy? Distinguish that policy from an unknown citizen doing the same thing, and explain where you draw the line between prominent and unknown. Are we not all equal at the end of life?

Sherman's story is about the delay in resolving the issue of access, not really the merits of the KORA request. Apparently it took the DA's office over a year even to contact the TPD about the "policy" (which is unwritten and may not even exist), and then only after being prompted by the requestor asking for an update. Now the DA is waiting for a response, thereby allowing the TPD to dictate the timing of the investigation. Shameful.

All I asked was a simple question. If the police withhold the name of a suicide victim that occurred in a private setting, would the media be alright with it or would they file a KORA for it. Since the article was specific in saying "who die in public", I had to ask.

Further Sherman, what do you consider public. I know this is not a question he will not answer as one he cannot speak for TCJ and would not want to box TCJ into a corner. None the less, it is a question that the people should have an answer to if media like TCJ is going to "intercede" on the behalf of the people.

I do not care if it is a sensitive issue for editors or not. If for example, TCJ cannot make the right call, then Greg Ireland needs to step down and put someone in his place that can make the right call.

To answer your question on an elected official committing suicide, I'll answer that with a question of my own. With elected officials, we feel we need to know all they do. Media sends out surveys to ask their stance on things. So if an elected official is the same as a regular citizen, should we not be reporting on what every citizen does? Forget the logistics of it, but an elected official willingly joined the public eye when they decided to run for office. It is not like they got elected and then found out that the media will be reporting on everything they do. If I were to run for public office, I would have to accept the same. A citizen on the other hand is not a public figure. The fact that they ended their life is not enough of a threshold to thrust that person into the same realm as an elected official.

Lastly, Merriam, you mentioned that none of your clients automatically publish these stories, so who are your clients? I'll refrain from asking who you are. But I will ask if you helped file the KORA or filed your own KORA on this pending request?

American Heritage Dictionary definition of fascism: "...a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Are the police really withholding the information to protect the families? Or is this something else? What other information can they conceal from the press?

We live in an era when transparency is on our minds because of secrecy both in government and in corporations (increasingly the same thing). We also live in an era of privacy issues with many worried about agencies like the NSA or businesses like Google or Facebook or Amazon knowing too much about us as free individuals. The trade-off seems to be that privacy goes out the window when we live in a digital world.

However, the freedom of the press is still something to cherish even in an era of increasingly corporatized media. We have no other way to be informed or to question authority than investigative journalism. We have to honor that freedom of information. I think that was the premise behind Wikileaks. Why can't information be available for the public? Why do we live in a world of so much secrecy? They get to have privacy and we lose it. That usually doesn't work very well.

The DA needs to say why it is concealing information about these matters, IMO. If there's a justifiable reason, so be it. Then we need to ask what makes it "justifiable." But when we lose access to information we lose a very necessary constitutional protection. Then there is no accountability for those in power.

As in the case of victims of violent crime or those affected by other tragedy, we are obligated to give families an opportunity to talk about it. Often, they want to do so. When they don't, we respect their wishes.

Wow. Now I have seen it all. This media outlet and its attorney don't receive the feedback that they were looking for so they blog about the story to explain the story and make sure (I guess) that we understand their plight. Yes...we get it... your the media...But, not all of us agree. Sorry. How dare we! I don't need to know the name of a person who has chosen to end their life and bring misery to their friends and family. Even if they do it in public. Finally, I have to ask Merriam: do they pay you by the hour to blog??

Anybody surprised that the lawyer that gets his money from media outlets defends them?
That's his job! Having a job does not require human decency.
Zorak- you got it right, politicians and others who put themselves in the public light forfeit SOME of their privacy expectations. But, does this mean that if one of their children takes their own life, we ALL deserve to know it?
Contrary to media opinion, I don't believe we deserve or need to know everything.

Sherman is correct. My name is Michael Merriam. I represent the C-J as well as many other press and broadcast companies. It is a privilege to do it and I'm not afraid to use my real name or to defend my clients.

Another line of thought from a post I read above somewhere... withholding the names of suicide victims won't stop the police from investigating it to be sure it's not murder.

Where something is THAT important I have a hard time trusting anybody to do the right thing whether it's the media, the police, or whomever.

But a little story that may help: I have a friend whose daughter decided to act out for a few years when she was in her mid-twenties. She didn't take drugs but she went to parties where drugs were being sold, etc. (Or so her mom thought, at any rate.) The problem was this young woman had a child in 3rd grade and this child had a lot of friends in the neighborhood and at school an at church too. She was in the top of her class and her friends were from good family homes.

So when the police arrested the child's mother (for what turned out not to be true, later) the grandmother was in agony that this child's friends would all know what happened. She was afraid for her grandchild that she might be hurt by something someone would say. Finally, in tears she called the newspaper and, still crying, begged them not to put her daughter's name in the page where the police report is posted. (You know, some of those people are actually innocent sometimes and yet their names are in the paper as criminals. I have a hard time with that.)

The newspaper said they'd do what they could. It turned out they did not put her name in the paper. I can imagine they understood the grandmother's fear for the little 3rd grade girl.

But what if she had gotten someone on the phone who didn't have a heart? I'm sure not everyone who works in news media has enough heart to care about the children of people who do wrong things.

Or the children of suicide victims.

It's a hard thing to figure out how I feel, but I know we need a free press; I know we don't need the police making the laws; and I know we don't need to be hurting people who are already suffering if it's not necessary.

That's why I wish there was a law saying suicide victims' names CANNOT be published. It would take all the guesswork out of it.

I don't know what the answer is in this case, but shouldn't the DA's office be able to provide an answer in a more reasonable time frame? I can't help but think they've addressed the issue - - - they just want to withhold the information.

Since the CJ is one of your clients, you know you can get the real name of anyone who comments on this forum.
Yes, you get credit for identifying yourself and the CJ gets credit for publishing comments that criticize the paper.
However, not all editors use the discretion Mr. Smith would like us to believe.
How about area politicians who get divorced or commit domestic violence. Where was the CJ when the examples I'm thinking of occurred within the last ten years? Politicians are public figures, right?

Thank you for sharing your story. Your point about the possibility of talking to someone without a heart is understood.

Here is something Anstaett said that I didn't use: "Generally speaking, the news media are also human beings who understand that certain information is quite sensitive, and we make those kinds of decisions on a daily basis."

If the law forbid the publication of a suicide victim's name, we would still request the identity to help us gather information about what happened.

First of all, Chad Taylor has quite a few things going on, and a KORA inquiry, while important, is probably not at the very top of the list. If you take criminal law into consideration (that is, however, what his office, and his job, is there for), has VERY time specific standards to uphold (i.e. a suspect must be charged with a crime within 48 hours of being in arrested, or have a 48 hour affidavit filed with the court explaining why the defendant was not charged with a crime, but is in jail without charges). And a defendant also has to have hearings for bond amounts, especially for major crimes. Smaller crimes usually the jail has a list of bond amounts for those.

The D.A.'s office has many, many things that it is doing all at the same time, that again, are very time sensitive for criminal proceedings. With that being the D.A.'s office primary duty, if things like a KORA inquiry get pushed off for a while, then so be it.

Next, the media and Law Enforcement have always enjoyed a love-hate relationship. They have always helped each other when the time was needed, such as when a person that is needed to be caught is a high priority for public safety, or emergency situations require a broadcast, the media is a very helpful partner to law enforcement.

However, then there are times that the media just gets in the way. When there is a crime scene, and the police is doing what it can to secure it, there are media people that are trying to do what they can to get the most video, pictures, interviews of officers, witnesses, bodies, evidence, or whatever they can. In doing so, it can actually mess up the investigation into whatever is going on at the crime scene. While they may or may not realize it, their constant barage of "the people have a right to know everything about everything and everybody" can and does, on occasion, actually hurt when it comes to getting the right people prosecuted for crimes. While I cannot give specific instances of when this has happened, I can only tell you that it has happened.

When Marriam stated in his comment above "It may not have been suicide - who says it was? Perhaps it was an accident; perhaps there were witnesses; perhaps it was a criminal act; perhaps the person was confused or in need of care; perhaps the setting was inherently unsafe; perhaps safety precautions were not followed; perhaps the person was wanted by police for some reason; perhaps there have been many suicides at that location; etc., etc. The media ask many questions before making the decision to publish or not. But when you accept the judgment of the police, you do so without facts, often based on reports of unqualified officers.", I believe that he is very much wrong. Law Enforcement officers, which I am a former Law Enforcement Officer and Paramedic, having had to retire at a young age due to health reasons, are uniquely trained to find witnesses, determine the safety or unsafeness of a scene, especially traffic scenes, check for warrants and other wanted persons when identities are checked, and can show if there is a pattern of particular incident at a particular area byu their record keeping, that is required by law.

Now, Mr. Merriam, Reporters for newspapers and TV stations are not fully capable of doing some of the things, legally, that a Law Enforcement Officer is capable of doing. Reporters and TV stations cannot run NCIC file checks for active warrants or anything else, or as you said "perhaps the person was wanted by police for some reason;". That would take an NCIC check, which a reporter would not have. A reporter also would not have access to a full criminal history report. You may have part of it, but not the whole thing.

Also, the person's family would be willing to talk to police, but the 90% or more of the time, will not talk to the news. A major insight to what was going on with the person come from the person's loved ones and friends. Quite frankly, you would have little chance of those people wanting to talk to you or representatives of the media.

So in conclusion, Law Enforcement and Media have a good relationship, in that we have our purposes in life, but we also compliment each other, and work together with each other, when needed, to get the news out to the masses to keep them safe. However, it is not the media's job to try and do the investigation work for Law Enforcement, just as it would not be prudent for Law Enforcement to open up its own TV studio and to broadcast what it wants. I am willing to bet that here in the U.S.A., you would block that in every way you could.

To me, the media has been getting a little to personal with what it wants. When they start going after celebrity's who are out walking with their babies, and they have to run and hide, just to get away from being mobbed by camera's, to the just announced hack by someone that got nuded footage from their Iphones after the Icloud was hacked.

Then, what REALLY gets me, is someone goes and says " an un-named source has told us that the U.S. intends to... and then gives Top-Secret plans out over the news. At that point, the whole world knows what we are about to do. News media is so wanting that info, and to share it, and to be the first to share it, that it is willing to destroy this country for it. It just makes me madder than heck. And it all ties back into this locally by the right to know, and the want to know by the media can be good and bad. How much is too much?

Whether it is personal or not, how do you know that the information that you get won't affect the lives of more than just a few? And, how is it your right to decide, over law enforcement, whether it should be released to the public or not. Maybe the media is not the best keeper of secrets. They have not been so far.

It is because of media attention to cases that have become widespread, such as horrific murders and such, that cases have had to change venues, and defendants and even prosecutors have questioned if they can hold a fair trial for a defendant in certain area's due to media's coverage of a trial, or of the crime before a trial has started.

That cost the taxpayers even more money to have to move things to another area, for travel expenses, transport of the prisoner, witness travel fee's, etc.. Not only that, but it can compromise some (it is possible, but rare) chances of a completely fair trial, because jurors will say that they have never heard of the defendant, even though they have, and some of the evidence because the media has said where the evidence is going to be tested, and if someone wanted to tamper with it, they would know where to look for it (it has never been proven to happen, but nothing is impossible these days).

So again, Just adding to what even more media's right to know about everything can have more effect of bad on our lives, but flip that around, and see that they brought to our attention the TFD overtime scandal. So it can have the good effect also.

Again, just my 2 cents worth. And, as quoted by the great Dennis Miller...

Now, I do not mean to be insulting and I will acknowledge that a private business (TCJ) is not the same as a government agency (TPD). But the whole complaint is about an unwritten policy that TPD has.

My question is does TCJ have a written policy on suicides and how they are reported or is it merely as you said, just dependent on whether 2 or 3 individuals (which ever 2 or 3 who are in that day) think its newsworthy or not? Again, no offense, but the TCJ not having a written policy themselves complaining about another not having a written policy seems...well, you know what it seems like.

Again, I acknowledge the differences as well as acknowledging that is exactly what TCJ does every day...determine what is newsworthy or not. But it seems that said determination is skewed at times for no good reason.

I respectfully disagree that "When a person dies in public, suicide or not, it is by definition a matter of public interest." Lots of things occur in public that I would not consider a matter of public interest. People visit the zoo, picnic in the park, work in their yard on a regular basis "in public" or at least in public view and that does not entitle the rest of us to know every nuance of their activity.

This broad brush of "matter of public interest" that you are using simply does not stand up to closer scrutiny. Yes you can say "It may not have been suicide - who says it was?" all day long but that ignores the fact of who indeed is saying, and those would be the law enforcement professionals and the coroners who are trained to investigate these incidents and "by definition" have far more experience than most reporters and likely more than most lawyers.

We absolutely need a system of checks and balances on our law enforcement professionals, I would never disagree with that. But such matters are investigated in accordance with the laws created by our elected representatives and if an investigation into an apparent suicide is determined by the investigation to be just that, and the coroner's office concurs and possibly even the DA weighs in then what is the compelling issue with revealing the name of the deceased? At some point we have to say enough experts have examined an issue and ruled accordingly, be it at the DA's level, the coroner's level or maybe through a formal coroner's inquest. But none of that requires revealing the name of the deceased.

Lastly, if you think a person who commits suicide is capable of a rational choice about that act or where to do it (your justification included the victim "choosing" to commit suicide in public) you are sadly mistaken. A rational person does not commit suicide in such a grim and painful manner, if at all save perhaps to end suffering from a fatal illness or disease.

I realize this is a stretch but consider that with all the HIPAA rules about the privacy of a person's medical history being enacted in recent years why should the press get to dig into what was lawfully determined to be a suicide. Satisfying one's personal curiosity is not justification for such an intrusion.